Which financial advisers came under ASIC’s scrutiny in H2 2022?

As the year winds up, Money Management looks at the financial advisers that came under scrutiny by the Australian Securities & Investments Commission in the second half of 2022.

At least six financial advisers had received a rap on the knuckles from the corporate regulator since June.

Most recently, Perth-based Rahul Goel was sentenced to three years in prison for dishonestly obtaining over $35,000 from his clients’ superannuation accounts. He was found to have submitted falsified access applications to the funds with his and his associates’ contact information and even impersonated clients over the phone in communications with the super funds.

Ashley Grant Howard was convicted in December on two charges of using false documents to obtain a financial advantage or cause a financial disadvantage. He had previously been charged in May with 17 offences for falsifying transfer forms to arrange for shares to be transferred between parties without the knowledge and approval of shareholders.

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In October, Totem Wealth Pty Ltd director James Carlos Reynolds was permanently banned from providing financial services resulting from questions on his conduct and fitness. ASIC found he “lacked the honesty, integrity, professionalism and sound judgement expected of someone working in the financial services industry”.

In September, WA-based John Wertheimer, pleaded guilty to one charge of providing financial services on behalf of a person who carries on a financial services business while unauthorised to do so and one charge of engaging in dishonest conduct. 

Ezzat-Daniel Nesseim had also been reprimanded by ASIC earlier this year with a three-year intensive correctional order for engaging in dishonest conduct and providing falsified documents to ASIC. In August, he was permanently banned from performing any function involved in the operation of a financial services business or controlling, whether alone or with others, an entity that operates a financial services business.

ASIC banned Antonio Simeone, director and manager of Simeone Pty Ltd, in August from providing financial services for five years. Surveillance had found he engaged in misleading or deceptive conduct when he recommended and facilitated the illegal early release of superannuation.

In late June, Melbourne-based financial adviser, David Noel Ruthenberg, was banned from providing financial services for three years after ASIC found he recommended some of his clients invest in a high-risk fund in which he had a specific interest and did not match his clients’ risk profiles or experience. 

These troubling cases in the financial advisory community came even as Australians’ trust in financial services stood at 45% this year, the 2022 CFA Institute Investor Trust Study found. Australians ranked lower than global peers like the US (64%), UK (51%), and Singapore (62%). 

Still, the silver lining was that the gap between what investors believe is important to get from their advisers and what advisers deliver narrowed from 31% in 2020 to 25% in 2022. The largest gaps related to expectations around disclosures of conflicts of interest and fee disclosure.